Gliding is an exciting and dynamic sport available to people of all ages. Unlike 'powered' flight, the duration of your flight depends the skill of the pilot.

The Adelaide University Gliding Club aims to make gliding as accessible and affordable as possible. Whether you just want to try it out, or think you might like to learn how to fly, we can help you out!

Instructions for your 'first time'

Flying with AUGC for the first time? Here's a list of things you should consider:

Car pooling

Drinking lots of water

Wearing a hat

Dressing appropriately

You'll be doing something new and exciting - bring a camera!

Bring food, or money for food

Bring money for further flying if you want more than your AEF package provides

Bring money for a BBQ or a pub meal for the end of the day

All of the above is fairly straightforward, and that's enough for most people. If you can take all of that at face value, you can probably stop reading now. Otherwise, if you want more information, explanation or justification, here's a wordier version of the points above:

Car pooling: Club members and guests usually meet at the Adelaide University footbridge at 7:30am or the Pooraka Caltex (corner of Montague and Main North Rds) at 8am and organise who will drive up with who. If you go to the airfield in someone else's car, it's traditional to pay them $5 each way to cover petrol and wear-and-tear. If you take someone to the airfield, it's ok to annoy them until they pay you. If you take enough people to the airfield to make a profit on the deal, that's considered ok too.

Bring a couple of litres of drinking water, or at least a drinking container so you can fill it up with airfield rainwater as required. Dehydration has very similar physiological effects to drunkenness, so if you don't have enough water you can expect your judgement to be impaired, your sense of balance to be affected, your reflexes dulled, headaches and nausea (which will turn into airsickness very quickly in the glider). The biggest difference between dehydration and drunkenness is that you don't feel drunk when you're dehydrated, you'll just feel like crap without knowing why. Note that soft drink is virtually useless for hydration; you need to drink plain water.

Wear a hat, even if it's cloudy. Sunstroke is just another word for "advanced dehydration", and you can expect some measure of all the symptoms described above if you don't wear a hat even if you've been drinking water.

Wear the kind of clothing that you'd wear if you expected to go bushwalking for the afternoon. Expect to get dirty -- The airfield is muddy when it has been raining, dusty when it hasn't.

Bring a camera. You'd be amazed how many people forget their camera and regret it. The views are astounding.

Bring food for lunch if you want to, but don't feel like you need to - There are at least two bakeries between Pooraka and the airfield (you can stop there on the way up in the morning to buy lunch if you want to). There's also a supply of food in the clubhouse on the airfield (pies, pasties, ice creams, drinks, frozen pizzas, chocolate bars, etc). Bring money with you to cover any clubhouse food you think you might eat.

Regular AUGC members pay reduced fees for each launch and each minute to fly in our twin seater pure gliders. Those who are new to gliding can purchase an "Air Experience Flight" package which gurarantees a minimum amount of flying. However, you can purchase additional time so you should bring extra money with you.

We sometimes have a BBQ at the end of the day (which usually costs $10 per head). If we don't have a BBQ we usually stop at a local pub or roadhouse for dinner. If you are car pooling with a Club member, expect to get back to Adelaide a few hours after dark.

If you want to drive yourself to Stonefield without a Club member on board, there is a map on the 'Finding Us' page to help you find your way.

If you have any questions which aren't answered by this document, email the contact person or ring him on 0412 870 963— that's what he's here for.

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